Post Conversion

Sally Quinn Gets Religion, Sort Of

by Mark Tooley

Washington Post journalist and Washington social doyenne Sally Quinn,
whose poison-pen personality profiles in the Post’s Style section
of the 1970s and 1980s once terrified, and titillated, official Washington,
is on a spiritual journey. And the effect, chronicled in “On Faith,” a
new religion weblog on washingtonpost.com, hosted with Time magazine
editor Jon Meacham, is not altogether unpleasant.

Quinn’s marriage to Washington Post editor and Watergate
hero Ben Bradlee, twenty years her senior, made her part of an unparalleled
journalistic and social power couple. (She describes him as a believing but
non-churchgoing Episcopalian.) Her novels and Washington social histories kept
her profile high, even as she retreated somewhat from journalism in favor of
motherhood.

Left on Faith

“On Faith” features several dozen prominent religionists giving
their views on issues spiritual and temporal. The list is slanted to the left.
Meacham is Episcopalian, and Quinn was, in part, raised Episcopalian.

There are also Holocaust survivor Elie Weisel; Madeline Albright (still another
liberal Episcopalian); and former Iranian president Muhammad Khatami, who is,
among so much else, a Muslim cleric.

Though not particularly known, at least publicly, for her religious interests,
Quinn is by far the most intriguing of the panelists. She recalls that she
was once a Christian, raised in Protestant military chapels, later became an
atheist, and is now a spiritual seeker. She is writing a book on religion in
Washington. Becoming a mother for the first time at age 41, her now 25-year-old
son has needed lifelong care because of a heart defect.

Her son’s health problem was “the most important thing that ever
happened to me. . . . In the end maybe it will make me a better writer because
I’ve become more empathetic and more sympathetic than I ever was before.” She
is not entirely proud of her past as a biting chronicler of Washington personalities. “A
lot of people got hurt in the process,” she wrote in her most recent
entry. “I never really felt good about that.”

Several years ago Quinn began her spiritual journey after realizing that
religion intersected with nearly everything about which she had written for
thirty years. “I changed my mind about being an atheist,” she reported. “I
would only describe myself now as a seeker.”

She has not settled into any particular religious belief system, but is enjoying “great
conversations” with assorted religionists. “Whatever gives you
solace, whatever gives your life meaning, whatever helps you make it through
the night is nothing less than a blessing,” she wrote recently.

A Precocious Atheist

Quinn has blogged about Hindu eroticism and about walking the labyrinth.
But far more interesting is her own spiritual history.

“When I was a child and my parents made me go to Sunday school I never
really believed in God because I simply couldn’t relate to an all-powerful
male God,” Quinn wrote recently. “I couldn’t ever imagine
that if God had been a woman she would have sent her only begotten daughter
to earth to be crucified. It was too horrifying to even contemplate. The idea
of actually worshipping someone who would do that was unthinkable.”

Evidently a precocious child, Quinn remembered that “I became an atheist
when I was six, though I didn’t know the word then. When I was 13 and
had learned the word, I declared myself to my parents, both Protestants, who
were horrified. The fact was, though, I just didn’t, couldn’t believe.” She
refused to join her family in saying grace at the dinner table, eventually
forcing her angry father to end the mealtime prayers.

Quinn attributes her childhood loss of faith, in part, to seeing pictures
of concentration camp victims that her father brought back from World War II,
and from her months in a hospital, where she saw horribly maimed soldiers from
the Korean War. She does not believe, at least when she last wrote on the subject,
in December 2006, that Jesus is divine or that God is omnipotent and loving.
But she always thought it would be “wonderful” to believe in such
a God.

Only twice in her life, she says, has she prayed privately. The first time
she prayed, she asked for protection for her father when he was serving in
the Korean War. The second time she prayed when her son was near death in the
hospital.

Both times she prayed she feared that she was selfish for preferring her
own relations in her prayers while so many others in the world suffered. And
she “didn’t know who or what to pray to.” She doubts that “a
good, loving, just God would create me, love me, and then not reveal himself
to me.” Thirteen years ago, though, flush with gratitude at Thanksgiving,
she asked her father to resume saying grace.

Why did Quinn abandon her atheism? She realized that she had been “condescending” towards
religious believers. And she was influenced by Meacham, a practicing Christian
and “one of the smartest, most decent people I have ever met.” Over
several years, he persuaded her not to define herself negatively as an atheist.
As she began to study religion, she was “amazed and embarrassed” by
her previous ignorance.

A Free Way to God

Quinn now believes in God, who is for her “goodness and love and beauty,
humility, kindness and grace, generosity, and the human spirit.” She
is not sure she believes in a creator but is “curious.” She believes
that after death her spirit will live in another place, but she is not sure
what to call it.

Though still an atheist at the time, Quinn had her infant son baptized 25
years ago in a restaurant by a “radical” Episcopal priest. Last
year, he announced to her that he now believes in God, and his views of the
divine are shaped by the masculine and dramatic images of the Sistine Chapel.
He believes that his suffering through a lifetime of congenital heart illness
may have been part of a divine plan.

And he recently told his mother: “You started out as an atheist. Now
you’re a free thinker. I think you’re on your way to believing
in God.”

“Post Conversion” first appeared in the October 2007 issue of Touchstone. If you enjoyed this article, you'll find more of the same in every issue.

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